


In the Details

by misbegotten



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s02e21 1969, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-03-23
Updated: 2001-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack told me once that it's the little things that make life worth living. Of course, he also told me that no man is an isthmus, and when life hands you lemons make lemon meringue pie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Details

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for "1969."

_Your journey is just beginning..._

_Profound? Probably just pretentious. What's a beginning, anyway? How do we pinpoint it? Which millisecond of minutiae, for example, is the one that skews our perspective just enough to offer a glimpse of new worlds? Every day offers so many possibilities..._

***

There was a song running in his head. It was phenomenally annoying.

..poetry in motion...

Daniel clenched his eyelids tighter, trying to will away whoever was waving around the spotlight. He just wanted a few more minutes of peaceful oblivion, preferably without a soundtrack. He couldn't remember exactly why he felt so fuzzy, but he was sure the forthcoming day held little promise of relief.

Day... damn. It wasn't a spotlight, but rather cheerful, blinding, merciless sunlight working its way around the room. The day had begun without him. Well, good. It could keep going, then. And he could just burrow further under the blanket, relax in the soft shelter of the arm wrapped around his chest.

...as sweet as any harmony...

Wait.

Why, exactly, was there an arm around his chest? And who was breathing softly against the back of his neck?

Daniel was suddenly very, very awake.

One arm -- his own -- was pressed against his chest, his fingers tingling their way painfully awake after too long in one position. Another arm -- not his -- was wrapped around him, and a hand lightly cupped his wrist. Legs too had been doubled; he did a mental count, and discovered an extra pair of limbs tangled between his own. This was... seriously disturbing his ever-rocky morning equilibrium.

One of his own arms was free, he determined after quiet investigation. He felt the short stubble of worn carpet beneath his fingertips, and the buttery smooth line of polished wood that marked the leg of the couch. A-ha! He was stretched out on the couch, covered by the blanket that normally sat at the foot of the bed for protection against cool Colorado nights. He was, moreover, fully clothed. That eliminated a few possibilities for his predicament. Maybe.

Think, think... it was hard to think with all that pounding going on behind his eyes. Glasses would be an improvement. He squinted at the coffee table, and spotted the frames folded neatly in its center. Tantalizingly out of reach, as it turned out when he stretched with his free hand. As he strained a little more towards them -- who had pushed the coffee table so far out, anyway? -- the figure behind him stirred. He froze for a moment, then opted for a quick retrieval of the glasses.

That was the plan, anyway. His swimming head and jumbled limbs betrayed him, and he toppled to the floor.

"Daniel? Are you okay?"

"Sam?" He raised his head from the carpet, and found himself level with a pair of concerned blue eyes. "Um, fine I think." He tentatively touched his nose, which was now throbbing in time with the cacophony in his head. "I fell off."

Sam smiled sleepily and tugged a little on the afghan, which had partly fallen to the floor with him. "I can see that," she replied, burrowing into the blanket. "How's your head?"

"Okay, I guess."

She closed her eyes and pulled the blanket to her chin. "Well, since you're up first, you can get the kids going."

"Kids?" Maybe he'd heard her wrong.

"Don't forget that Steph has soccer today," she mumbled. "And Jake has to be at practice by ten."

He was sweating, Daniel realized. All the noise in his head had gone still, blessedly. But he was definitely sweating. "Um, Sam...." He turned awkwardly, trying to avoid the hard edge of the coffee table, and pulled himself up into a sitting position.

She had one eye open and the blanket hiding her mouth. He yanked it from her grasp, and saw her lips pressed tightly together, trying to restrain a chuckle.

"That was *not* funny," he complained.

She shook, laughing silently.

He lay back down on the floor, and put an arm over his eyes. "Maybe a little," he conceded, grudgingly.

Sam let the rest of the blanket slide down, and it pooled next to him on the floor. Propping herself up on one crooked arm, she asked, "Seriously, how are you feeling? You were pretty zonked."

"Zonked? Is that a technical term?"

"Daniel, you insisted that we watch _The Mummy_. And you were sniffly."

"That's because the Egyptology was so bad," he muttered. Truth be told, he couldn't really remember watching the movie.

"Uh huh." She sat up, swinging her feet off the couch, resting them near his head. She was -- like him, he realized -- without shoes and socks. Not so fully clothed after all, it seemed. Her toenails were painted, he noted, some good humor returning.

Then he flinched as she leaned over and ran her fingers lightly along his scalp, back almost to the carpet. "Hmmm. At least the swelling's gone down. You're lucky you didn't need stitches."

Stitches? Well, that explained why his head hurt. Sort of.

"What happened? I can't seem to remember."

She hesitated, then moved the back of her hand to his forehead. "I guess Janet's happy pills really did work." Apparently satisfied that he wasn't running a fever, she slumped back against the sofa cushions and raised her arms, stretching with abandon. "You hit your head," she managed despite the yawn. "You didn't want to stay at the infirmary, so I brought you home and stayed a while."

"And we fell asleep."

If she noticed that it was more of a question than a statement, she failed to comment. "Like I said, you were pretty zonked."

He wished that he could remember... but, like his glasses, the details remained tantalizingly out of reach. Thinking of the glasses, he reached out and plucked them off the coffee table, restoring at least a semblance of normalcy. "Thanks for staying," he offered. Now her smile was unfuzzy.

"No problem. You can pay me back by letting me use the shower first."

He blinked. Sam. In his shower.

What else could he expect from a day that began with Sam as the mother of his children?

Dr. Jackson, he chided himself, get a hold of yourself. No more blows to the head. "Sure," he said weakly from the floor. "I'll just stay here for a while."

***

_We are, even in the beginning, never alone. Our heartbeat is twinned, echoing with another's from the first seconds of life. And that is just a promise of things to come._

***

Sam's hands were covered in flour. The countertop was lightly dusted with it, as was the floor. And, she realized as she stared at it, the handle of the refrigerator. She rubbed at the smudge on the handle with the edge of her hand, decided she was only making it worse, and replaced the milk carton on a relatively empty shelf for the third time. Remembering the ratio of liquid to flour for biscuits had proved difficult. Some days astrophysics was easier.

Still, she'd had few options for a breakfast menu -- stale Rice Krispies lurked in the cabinet, there were no eggs in the refrigerator, and fresh fruit required at least an occasional visit to the grocery store. Baking powder had been a real find.

Barren cabinets meant uncluttered ones, however. On the whole, Daniel's kitchen wasn't messy, or at least it hadn't been until she started kneading her flour mixture into an attempt at dough. Nor were there flourishing science projects in the refrigerator. Ferretti's wildlife pizza had been a running joke among the SG teams until Janet threatened to quarantine his fridge, but even Janet would be hard pressed to complain about this one.

A refrigerator, she mused as she cut the dough into roundels with the rim of a drinking glass, was very revealing. Janet's, of course, was always well stocked with fruits and vegetables, even when Cassie was in another peanut butter and jelly phase. The cheesecake and tequila in the freezer made for an excellent girls' night in after Cassie went to bed, too.

The Colonel's fridge... now there was a study in contradiction. A man who routinely gorged on Fruit Loops from the commissary kept fresh cilantro on hand, and made a heavenly chicken marsala.

Teal'c didn't need a refrigerator; granola didn't go bad. Nor did beef jerky, which was all Tomas' fault, though knowing the SG-2 captain's enthusiasm for exotic foodstuffs, it could have been worse... snake, maybe. Ick. Lou -- despite the overripe pizza -- lived by his grill, and his freezer generally bulged with prime cuts of beef.

Her own was haven to Lean Cuisines and ice cream bars. Daniel's... well, he'd never be short on ice cubes.

What a pair they made.

The biscuits were cooling on top of the oven and she was finishing the last of the dishes when Daniel stumbled into the kitchen, his hair still wet. "Hey," he began, then peered at the baking sheet as if it were an unfamiliar artifact. "Oh, you cooked," he finished, surprised.

Sam used a towel to dry her hands, then folded it over as an oven mitt. "We'll find out whether the result qualifies as food," she warned him as she swept the bread onto a plate, and she saw him smile before turning to grab juice glasses from the cupboard.

Crumbly, warm, oozing with butter -- not bad, Sam thought when she'd taken her first bite. Comfort food, just like mom used to make.

"Sam," Daniel mumbled around a mouthful, "This is wonderful. Really. You can make breakfast for me anytime."

She glanced at him, amused, as he cleared his throat self-consciously. "I mean, um, you've cooked for us before, but never for breakfast." He took a drink of orange juice before continuing, somewhat desperately, "I like biscuits."

Daniel first thing in the morning was good for the ego, Sam decided. If she didn't know him so well, she'd have to seriously reconsider her theory that he only noticed she was a member of the opposite sex when she kicked him out of the shared locker rooms at the SGC. But Daniel was either terminally oblivious, or inherently polite.

And if she'd enjoyed the sensation of waking up in the dark of night and feeling the rise and fall of his chest beneath her... if she'd considered disentangling herself from the admittedly intimate position which they'd curled into on the comfort of his couch, but then simply closed her eyes again... he wasn't likely to remember, and she wasn't about to remind him. Daniel's obliviousness was handy, sometimes.

"I'm glad they turned out okay," she said, letting him off the hook. "I thought maybe we'd have to order out. Do Chinese restaurants deliver at nine in the morning?"

"No," he replied, with a certainty that nearly made her laugh aloud. "But you're right -- I really ought to go grocery shopping."

"Okay, let's do it."

"Hmm?" Daniel brushed crumbs from his mouth. "Together? I mean...." He petered out, and she began to feel uncomfortably selfish.

"Look, I promised Janet that I'd keep an eye on you. She was threatening to tie you to a bed in the infirmary. But if you're feeling okay, I'll head back to the base and try to get some work done." The thought didn't appeal to her, for once.

"Sam --" He fixed her with a serious gaze. "I do feel better. Enough to remember Jack threatening to court-martial both of us if we showed our faces at work this weekend. I just didn't think that you'd want to spend the afternoon babysitting me."

The Colonel's dire threats didn't faze her. The time he'd padlocked her office door had been slightly amusing, though.

"He can't court-martial you," she responded, avoiding the subject.

"It's the threat that counts."

Well, he had a point there. "I'd feel better if you'd let me 'babysit' you this afternoon," she admitted.

"I'd feel better if you did." He smiled crookedly. "I lied -- my head still hurts like hell. And I don't want to take any more of whatever it was that Janet prescribed. Who knows where I'd wake up."

She bit her tongue.

***

_We change in the smallest of ways. Take, for example, the moment in which a bittersweet memory becomes just that... sweet as well as bitter. Time doesn't heal all wounds; living day to day, living with the thought of those we love, does._

***

Danny needed brain food. Spinach, right? Or was that liver? Of course, Jackson didn't pay much attention to what he ate even when he wasn't concussed; some musty text, sliced and sauted in a little garlic butter, would probably be right up his alley.

Jack O'Neill imagined ribs -- rip 'em from the bone, glossy with layers of caramelized sauce, accompanied by fat baked potatoes and cold bottles of beer. Now *that* was brain food. He whistled jauntily and pushed the rattling shopping cart towards the produce aisle.

"-- citrus fruit. You need vitamin C."

"Why? Because of a head injury?"

"To avoid rickets."

"I think Janet would tell me if I had rickets."

Well, well, well. Wherever you go... Jack continued whistling as he brought his cart to a stop behind them, but they didn't notice. He'd have to remember to schedule some covert ops training. "Would you two just pick out some oranges and get moving? Some of us have a grocery list."

Daniel and Sam looked up guiltily. That is, Daniel looked guilty, and plagued by that slightly puzzled "something's not quite right with this picture but I have a PhD and I'll figure it out soon" expression. Carter just gave him a smile and took the fruit from Daniel's hand, putting it in the basket she carried. "Checking up on us, sir?"

He feigned interest in some bananas. "I lost you for a while, but that tracking device I put on Danny's car works like a charm."

"But we didn't take my... Oh." Daniel rubbed his head. "Have I mentioned that I have a concussion?"

Ah, that was too easy an opening. He settled for slapping the younger man on the back. "It's a small world. And obviously the Major and I had the same plan to nurse you back to active duty with wholesome food. So what'll it be -- fruit salad or succulent barbecue?"

Did his tone sound a little challenging? Maybe he was slightly miffed that Carter had beaten him to the punch. But jeez, they just looked so... domestic. It was disconcerting. Definitely not professional.

Professional? Where the hell had *that* come from? Snap out of it, soldier. He settled for raising an eyebrow at Daniel, who looked nervously from Sam, back to him, and opened his mouth.

Jackson looked remarkably relieved when Sam's cell phone trilled, and she handed off the basket to him.

"C'mon, a little beer, a little time with the grill..." Jack suggested, while Sam murmured into the phone.

Daniel rewarded this proposition with a sideways glance at the woman, then studious consideration of the fruit. "I don't know, Jack." Daniel retrieved one of the oranges and placed it carefully atop a pyramid of its brothers. "Alcohol might not be such a good idea."

"We're having pizza," Sam interjected, snapping the phone shut. "Courtesy of Cassie. She's making dinner for Janet for Mother's Day."

Jack mentally considered his calendar. Wadda ya know, Mother's Day Eve. "And is doing it today because she wants it to be a surprise?" he suggested.

Carter grinned. "But she needed two favors: one, for me to get Janet out of the house. And two, for me to be there to help her cook because she's not allowed to use the oven by herself."

He grinned back, caught suddenly by the memory of Charlie stalking the mixing bowl while Sara dropped spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet. Maybe it was time to stop buying pre-packaged cookies.

"So what's the plan?" Daniel asked. "Be there, or not be there?"

She tapped him on the chest in answer. "You are the solution to problem number one, Mister Concussion. We're scheduling a relapse... about four hours from now."

Jack grinned at Daniel's pained expression, as Carter turned his way. "And you're the solution to problem number two. Think you can handle some cooking supervision, sir?"

He took the basket from Daniel and dumped their fruit into his cart. "Piece of cake, Major. Homemade pizza, huh? I know just what we need..."

***

_Jack told me once that it's the little things that make life worth living. Of course, he also told me that no man is an isthmus, and when life hands you lemons make lemon meringue pie. I learned to decipher. I know a heck of a lot more than Jack ever did about temporal mechanics, quantum mirrors, and the application of solar flares to time travel... but he was still pretty smart._

***

Doctor Fraiser was not supposed to be working on a Saturday. Yet Doctor Fraiser was in the infirmary, hands on her hips as she glared at a blue-white silhouette of a human cranium. Teal'c wondered if he had truly come to know his teammates' brain scans by sight.

"I can't find anything," she was saying. "The swelling is normal. I've run every test I can think of. And you've certainly had worse knocks than this."

"Are you ill Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked, stepping further into the infirmary. Jackson was sitting on the end of a bed, and did not look ill so much as weary. Extended sojourns in the infirmary, Teal'c reflected, tended to have that effect even on the most patient... patient.

"It's my fault," Major Carter interjected, putting a hand on Jackson's shoulder. "I must have been overreacting. But he *was* just really out of it, Janet."

Teal'c considered this, while Doctor Fraiser pulled the scan from its illuminated frame. It was unlike Major Carter to 'overreact,' particularly given Daniel Jackson's nearly routine propensity for minor injuries. "Perhaps the major was merely looking for an excuse to return to the base without facing a court-martial," he offered.

Doctor Fraiser looked puzzled. Daniel Jackson was considering him thoughtfully, as if debating whether it would be impolite to laugh. Teal'c raised an eyebrow at Major Carter's broad grin; perhaps she would not suspect that the joke was intended. He would have to test it on O'Neill sometime soon.

"Nonetheless, I have found meditation to be very beneficial in speeding recovery," he concluded.

Oddly, at the same moment both Major Carter and Daniel Jackson seemed to glance at the clock mounted on the wall behind him. Teal'c turned to look at it too, but observed nothing out of the ordinary.

Janet Fraiser did not seem to notice; her gaze slid from the major's hand on Jackson's shoulder back to the scan, then she made a sort of clucking noise. "I think you're right, Teal'c. Meditation, a few candles, and maybe a nice quiet dinner may be just what Doctor Jackson needs." Her lips quirked into a smile, and Jackson slid off the bed.

"Thanks Janet," he said, pulling his jacket on. His face was flushed, Teal'c noted with interest.

"Maybe Teal'c can lend us some candles," Major Carter suggested mildly. Her expression had changed rapidly from apologetic concern, to amusement, to what struck him as forced casualness. Perhaps it was she who needed the tranquility of meditation.

"Certainly," he answered, pushing aside the feeling that he had missed some undercurrent. "I will be happy to provide any assistance necessary." He nodded his head in farewell to Doctor Fraiser, and followed his teammates out the door.

He was not expecting them to be in whispered conference in the hallway. "Meet us in the parking lot in five minutes," Major Carter ordered him.

"And put on something festive," Daniel Jackson suggested.

Teal'c considered, briefly, pushing them both back into the infirmary for observation.

***

_I told them, "Your journey is just beginning." I told them that many, many times, in so many versions of their trip to the future. I meant it in all the good ways. It didn't always end in tears. Because, in the end, they had what they'd made -- a family._

***

"Teal'c! You wore a tie!"

"I thought it was festive. It is the beagle tie which you purchased for me, Cassandra."

"Snoopy, Teal'c. That's Snoopy."

"I do not understand, O'Neill. In what way was I being too inquisitive?"

"Barbecue sauce on pizza? Whose idea was that?"

"Jack's."

"The Colonel's."

"Colonel O'Neill, I suspect."

"Jack said it would taste better, Mom. And you might want to eat the part of the crust that's not burnt."

"-- I thought you said she was threatening to tie me to a bed in the infirmary? Janet, didn't you say that I'd had worse?"

"She didn't tell you how it happened, Danny? She dropped a telescope on your head."

"Really?"

"It was an accident."

"I'm sorry Major? I didn't quite hear you."

"Shut up Jack. I forgive you Sam. Or I will, if you'll make biscuits again."

"Is there something I should know?"

"Just that neither of our children are named after you, sir."

"I'm pretty sure that's a court-martialable offense."

"O'Neill, I think that Major Carter struck Daniel Jackson so she would have an excuse to return to work this weekend."

"Funny, Teal'c. Very funny. Try this one -- a snakehead walks into a bar..."


End file.
